The Third Kingdom

Abstract

Abstract From 1603, Ireland, England, and Scotland became part of a composite monarchy ruled by the new Stuart dynasty. One consequence was that a large scale colonization project — the plantation of Ulster — involved placing Scottish as well as English settlers in what had been the last stronghold of Gaelic Ireland. A uniform system of law and administration now extended over the whole island, an achievement celebrated in the legal writings of Sir John Davies. Meanwhile, the Irish economy had begun to expand as exports of sheep and cattle rose, and new industrial enterprises, notably iron manufacturing, spread. Commercialization was evident in the expansion of Dublin and other towns, and in the growth of fairs and markets. Plantation, economic expansion, and the growth of the civil and military bureaucracy allowed a new ruling class of recent English settlers to rise to prominence at the expense of the Old English.